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Topic: Personal Equipment (Read 4599 times)

Soft leather: This is saurian hide that is only tanned and beaten to make it soft and flexible. Most items are made from Gip hide, but other nice hides are taken from other Saurians. Dragon hide is never used for leather products.

Hard Leather: Hard leather is made by boiling, adding a complex tree resins to, and curing the leather. The resulting product is almost as hard and strong as good iron and is the commons substitute for metal and plastic. Most everyday leather is made of peeled Gip hide

Ceramics:

Stone: Since this is a common material on Kerren, small items of carved stone are also fairly common.

Wood: A very common material for personal goods. Kerren has little in the way of good Hardwoods (they have yet to evolve). The local Evergreens are the only real hardwood, and are as strong as pine. However, given the use of laquers and resins (from the advance knowledge of chemistry), these coatings can make furniture and wooden items quite strong and beautiful.

Bamboo: This is not terrestial Bamboo, but it is bascially the same plant (Bamboo was on Terra long before the Dinosaurs, so a similar plant should develop on Kerren). Poles are made out of Bamboo.

Glass: A substance that the locals can casually make. With their knowledge of advanced technologies, they can make glass stronger than we can today with less technology. Optics item and mirrors are commonly available (telescopes and binoculars are indespensible survival items.

Flax: The rough cotton like fabric that is currently produced on Kerren. It is used for most non clothing fabric uses.

Metal: Yes things are still made of metal that are of Kerrenese origin. Most metal things are Cluster/ Warren/ Village community property. Ryder weapons used against megafauna are normally metal as well (thought they might be personal, they are used for common purposes). What metals are available? The mining of copper and tin is fairly common (as common as any mining is). This makes Bronze a frequently used alloy. Iron and Aluminum are also available in vastly smaller quantities.

Armor: Ryders will be wearing suits of full leathers for protection from the elements and from dangers.

Soft Leather armor: We have some pretty thick hides on this planet, as well as some very nice ones. This is the most common form of armor, as soft leather suits are worn by Ryders when ryding.

Waxed leather: Curboli This is a cross between soft and hard leather. Cheaper, but vastly less strong than Hard Leather.

Hard Leather armor: Add a little resin from a tree and some heat and pressure, and soft leather and you get hard leather. The suit would be soft leather with section of hard leather. It would look a great deal like a leather motorcycle suit.

Gear:Food Kit: Personal utensils, cup/mug, and emergency plate/ pan.Glider: (Hang Glider)Grapple:Kit: Box of personal effectsKite: BasicKite: ElaborateKite: Personal Lure: A wind up ball that generates an electrical call and a small noise for a time to draw megafauna to it. Parasol:ParachuteRopeRut bag: A duffle bag

Ryde Gear:Bit: Used by non bonded ryder, to give them a good way to communicate with their dragons via a system of tugs. Caddy: Use to store spears and pole weapons on a Dragon's harness. Goggles:Harness: The basic straps that allow for a saddleLures:ParachuteRyder Suit:Saddle/fightingSaddle/cargoSaddle/platSaddle/passengersSaddle Bags

WeaponsGamers seem to love weapons, so here they are

The weapons need to be primarily one handed and designed for use against monsters rather than humans. (though we will be using them against humans from time to time... Warfare is not practiced on Kerren, but duels and assasinations are)

Also remember that most items that we would think of as metal are hard leather, treated Gip hide that is nearly as tough as steel.

*Combat Knife: A multipurpose tool really. Weapons a Ryder might use need to have really good grips, lest they drop them and they fall to the ground.

* Crescent Knife: A knife made from a dragon's claw.

*Circle knife: A round bladed circlular blade. Used in China. Can be thrown. And is also a tool for skinning animals. Good ones are metal, but hard leather ones are quite common.

* Spear with a cross bar on the head- a boar spear: Normally only used when hunting Zhan

* Halberd: All around great weapon. A weapon that actually had a western martial art attached to it, in the 1400-1500s.

* Spear with sleeve catchers: Ryder vs criminal weapon.

*Javalin: Used in several of the mock combat dragon tournament events. Add an Atlatl, or spear thrower, and it can be a formitable weapons.

*Crossbow 1 handed: They need one hand for holding on to the Dragon.

*Crossbow 2 handed: For killing Zhan dead. Requires a steady ride or being tied in to use.

*Bola: A great thrown weapon good for capturing or slowling down the critter in question. Great for catching humans as well.

*Whip: A hard weapon to master, but very versitle if you do.

*Firebombs: also known as Motloff cocktails

*Boomerangs: While they make the toy ones, that return automatically, they will make the heavier war boomerangs. These thrown items have ranges equivalent to a bow and are large and heavy, suitable for taking down game/ smaller saurians and annoying bigger megafauna.

*Triffle: This is a three tined throwing toy. Not normally used as a weapon (it has the throwing characteristics of an airfoil), but used as a throwing toy. Therefore it is used by children to hunt insects (while the insects hunt them... so it is only fair) It is also used in an ariel football like game (frisbee football/ rugby rules). Since it is something that people might have on hand that can be used as a weapon if thrown just so , it should be listed as one.

*Hatchet: Another tool turned to weapon status.

*Multipick: A tool used by the American Pioneers, the head includes a hammer and a wide bladed pick, the other end a shovel. This is a useful tool for a variety of purposes... including the splitting of skulls in anger.

Note: Swords are great, but mostly as an anti-personel/human weapon. Not as efficient vs animals. Maces are great weapons, but require you to get closer to the megafauna than you would normally want, plus cutting is better against thick hide creatures. That is why I choose spears as their primary weapons against animals/monsters. Given the lack of metal, martial arts/ unarmed combat will be a very common form of combat.

1) This is what real GMs do. They create detailed worlds for their players to have dramatic adventures in. That would include what people look like, what they have available, and why they would be adventuring.

2) If you had read any of the material, rather than just having no impulse control, you would of learned what the world was about. The short version. Colonists land. They learn to live with the dinosaurs and dragons on their world. They find they are menaced by zenogentic forms called Zhan that fall through dimensional rifts that occur during electrical storms. Zhan then turn into monster. The Colonists travel about on flying dragons that can travel through hyperspace. They are living in harmony with their world and hunting down Zhan invaders before they can destroy the biosphere.

3) If you had bother to read anything, rather than just publically sticking your foot in your mouth, you would of known that the world does not have much in the way of iron (thus steel). They don't use Katana's or swords here.

Swords are only useful vs underarmored humanoids. They were developed by a number of cultures where you had armored elites slashing their way through less elite (and less armored foes). (Usually all those guys carrying spears). This pattern holds up from ancient Sumer to Feudal Japan. In places where heavier armor was created, and they wanted to kill their armored targets, they would use maces (which generate enough focused energy through the plate/ chain). In any place where the fighting is against animals (who are notably dangerous when you get close to them), you use spears. That is why in Africa they have spears as their primary weapons, and In Eurpose where the humans were more dangerous than the animals they tended towards swords.

The Katana is one of the finest hand to hand weapons created. In Japan, their lack of iron limited its use in armor, thus swords were still effective vs samurai there. However, it would only scratch 8 gauge gothic plate. (The samurai would then dump the swords and probably win the hand to hand combat (unless it went to wrestling were the European Knight might of had a chance). ) It would have trouble going through Giraffe Hide (5" thick) or Rhino hide.

Since this is world with MEGAFAUNA (Things big as or bigger than most DINOSAURs). The weapon of choice is a spear, a crossbow, and a flying dragon.

That way you can attack and not be considered dinner. Since it is so much easier to eat something poking you with a "toothpick" (which is what you would look like to this creature) than to have to hunt down whatever is annoying you.

A Ryder Spear is a length of Hard Leather two to three meters in length. It has a point tip, a block, and a hand tip. There are hundreds of variations on the basic designs for the weapon. Some wings (and Edges) will have "wing weapons", so the entire wing will have the same design (assisting in training and standardized tactics). But in most cases, Ryders will have craftsmen carve out weapons to fit their personal needs (and wing colors).

I was thinking, old school photography would be very possible given Kerren's technology level and other restrictions. We would be talking early turn of the century photography, rather than the photographic processes of the 1880s. The cameras would be bigger and bulkier, because of the lack of metals to make them. The lens can be made, but not very easily, so it is not a common thing. You can't get color and really fast development because the byproducts of making the things to make color and fast are pretty darn toxic and thus against Preserver ideals.

So cameras are good sized wooden boxes. Larger than "brownies", but smaller than the early boxes. The images are better when stationary on tripod. Images will blur quite often if there is motion.

I am thinking photography is becoming a current "fad". Somebody looked at the old holos and thought, there has to be a way to do that. They check the computer, get some plans, do some experimentation, and ta-da! a new hobby. So now we have black and white and sepia toned images, instead of the "traditional" drawn artwork.